


Be Gay Do Heists

by merperson1



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, F/M, Leverage AU, M/M, also i know jonny sims said tim was the least close with martin, and have been for AWHILE, and they watch bad movies together, assholes but in a fond way, but i cant HEAR him, but sasha is alive so timsasha rights!, if this fic wasn't timsasha, it's MY au and I get to decide everyone already likes each other!!!, martin and tim are BEST BUDS, melanie and jon are best friends who r like, on god we would have jonmartim, that's right! the only evil fear powers here is just late stage capitalism!, these are just worms, why have interpersonal conflict when you can have interpersonal BANTER, worms but not canon typical ones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24440011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merperson1/pseuds/merperson1
Summary: A hacker, hitter, grifter, thief and mastermind work together to take down some big bads and provide leverage to the downtrodden.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James/Tim Stoker, also like everyone & everyone they r all friends
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	Be Gay Do Heists

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY SO!  
> a. I am not the first person to write a leverage au of TMA and I may not be the last. The first is The Kansas City Shuffle Job by arboreal_overlords and I highly recommend it go read it. However, i think our versions are different enough that I won't be stepping on any toes.  
> b. for quick reference  
> Hacker- Sasha  
> Hitter- Melanie  
> Grifter- Martin (ugh we love that for him)  
> Thief- Tim  
> Mastermind- Jon  
> c. The PLAN for most of these chapters is that they'll be self contained "episodes" with a bit of overarching plot, and each job is vaguely related to an entity. That being said, I wanted more immediate attention, so the first job is split into two chapters.  
> d. I have MANY vague plans for this story but if there's any jokes/backstory/headcanons that don't make it into the main text I'll put them here  
> e. There's vague spoilers through season 5 of tma but just like. Names. no actual #content

“So it’s a worm.”

Sasha lightly smacked Tim on the shoulder for his comment, despite the fact that she was similarly unimpressed by what the client wants. Still, _she_ had a sense of decorum, so after shooting Tim a “don’t be an ass” glance, she put on her best genial smile.

“It’s not _just_ a worm,” replied both their client, Jane Prentiss, and Martin, who continued, “It’s a C. Elegans, right? Model organism for all sorts of biological research?”

Jane beamed at him as and gave an excited, “Yes! That’s exactly it!” while his coworkers stared with varying levels of surprise. Martin gave a one shoulder shrug and told them, “ What? I had a dalliance with a geneticist. He'd like to go _on and on_ about his work and, well, I was a good listener. Paid proper attention to detail.”

“Ah. And what, Mr. Blackwood, might _good listener_ be a euphemism for?”

“Mr. Stoker! ‘Good listener’ means ’good listener'. It was absolutely not anything _untoward,”_ Martin dropped the scandalized tone in favor of a barely suppressed smirk, “that time. Good listener was _definitely_ a euphemism with the pianist.”

That resulted in dual groans from Melanie and Jon, an amused eye roll from Sasha, and the desired beaming grin from Tim, who then ducked his head and whispered to Sasha, “I think I might wanna be Martin when I grow up.”

Sasha let out a huff of laughter and stage-whispered back, “That’s going to be kind of hard, considering he’s six years younger than you.”

“No fucking way, he’s twenty-nine? I can’t believe Jon hired an infant.”

“Wanna hear the real kicker? Jon’s six months younger than him.”

“JON’S an infant?!”

Jon may not have had context for Tim’s outburst, but he found he didn’t need it to feel justified in sending a withering glare at the man. Quickly, he tugged down on his frankly ridiculous sweater-vest, straightened his posture, and bit down a world weary sigh in favor of directly addressing Jane. “Apologies for my colleagues. While they are all extremely skilled in their fields, they are all also deeply unprofessional and overly familiar with one another. Please continue your story.”

Jane blinked owlishly at him, then scrubbed at her arm and let out an awkward approximation of laughter. “Um, I don’t actually mind? I mean, if it’s, I dunno, an act to make people feel more at ease, good job! It’s working! But if not, it’s...kind of nice? You all seem like you belong, and, um, that’s something that I’ve never really had with my coworkers, just the work itself. I just never really _clicked_ with people, they never made sense like the worms did, but. Um. Starting to think that might have been a mistake, I probably wouldn’t _be_ in this mess if I was closer to someone else in the lab, but..”

As she trailed off, Martin gently prodded for further details with, “And what exactly is that mess, Dr. Prentiss?”

Jane gave a sharp shake of her head, voice much more assured as she replied, “Right, so, the specimen I brought you a picture up isn’t just a worm, and it isn’t _just_ your run of the mill, dime a dozen C Elegans either. It’s been genetically engineered to be optimized for research, with larger axons, low random mutation rate, more offspring, and most importantly, a lifespan of up to five years.”

Sasha and Martin both looked suitably impressed, but Melanie wasn’t yet quite sold. “Why is the five years most important?”

There was a glimmer in Jane’s eyes that meant she both expected and desired the questioning. “Because the average lifespan of these worms is two to three _weeks,_ which, while there’s been some impressive work-arounds, hardly makes aging and longevity studies particularly easy. We have the entire connectome of C. Elegans mapped out, being able to watch an individual animal's entire neuronal circuit over the course of years would be _invaluable_ to researchers. And such a creature could in turn be priceless to whoever was supplying it. Unfortunately, John Amherst knew this.”

After letting out a long breath and squaring her shoulders, Jane continued, “I’ve been working on this project for the past ten years. However, funding ran dry about three years back. Turns out it can be hard to get grants for worms, no matter how useful. Amherst showed up with an offer that seemed like a dream come true. The deal was that, in exchange for spending half of my work hours on whatever drug development pet project he wanted, the rest of my hours could be for my own research, and all expenses would be covered. Not only that, but my partner and I, Jillian Smith, got to keep full ownership of our independent work. I thought there was no possible way this was a legitimate offer, but there were previous testimonials from other researchers that validated his claims. Plus, he made some sort of argument about wanting an expansion of viewpoints beyond those who were already entrenched in pharmaceuticals that was oddly convincing. Honestly, I was desperate enough to continue my work that I probably would’ve accepted it even if the contract had started with ‘WARNING: This is a Scam’. Still, everything went smoothly until we actually succeeded.”

Melanie folded her arms and a bitter smile crept on her face. “Let me guess, you went to publish, and that contract you signed had some very small and very complicated fine print that meant Amherst got everything.”

“Not exactly. The contract was as airtight as you can get, Jillian had some lawyers go over it with a fine tooth comb before we ever signed. However, the day after I talked to her about publishing our results and making them publicly available so that anybody with a 2 bit gene editor could make their own version, I was fired. I went home to find my apartment ransacked, the physical copies of my notes all taken and my computer’s hard-drive wiped clean. Luckily, I have a couple of backup thumb-drives hidden, but my data is incomplete without Jillian’s work.”

Jon frowned slightly, asking, “So why not go to Jillian?”

Jane’s expression was utterly sardonic as she replied, “Oh, I did. Jillian hadn’t been fired. Jillian had agreed to hand over everything she had for a 3 million dollar pay out. Said something like ‘just because you wanna be a broke do-gooder doesn’t mean _I_ shouldn’t get paid.’”

“Ah.”

“Which is where all of you come in. It’s a bit,um, extralegal, but either access to Jillian’s notes or to one of the live specimens that they’ve kept in store would give me enough to release a full report and how to guide. Do you think that-?”

A small smile on his face and a softness in his tone, Jon told her in no uncertain terms, “We’ll take the job. More information is needed to determine if the notes or the worm will be more viable, but we can guarantee enough for a full and thorough report.”

Suddenly, Jon found himself on the receiving end of a hug as Jane threw her arms around his shoulders,and let out a series of enthusiastic “Thank you!”s. He attempted to not stiffen up _too_ noticeably, and even managed to give her a slight pat on the back even as he shot a couple of panicked glances to his colleagues. They all responded with _completely_ unhelpful grins, Tim going the extra mile to shoot him a thumbs up.

After only a few moments, Jane pulled back, but still held both his wrists in her hands as she looked him in the eyes and said, “You’re a kind man, Mr. Sims. This is going to do a lot of good, I _promise.”_

Even after a year of doing their best to provide leverage to the downtrodden, Jon was unequipped to deal with gratitude from their clients. “Um, I...sure. Alright. Anyway, we’ll keep in regular contact with you, and notify you when we’ve secured the worm and/or data. Tim, you’ll be the most involved in the actual retrieval, do you have a time estimate?”

With a snort, Tim replied, “Labs are notoriously easy to break into. I mean, c’mon, me and Martin once snagged an orphan drug with little more than my gusto and his uncanny ability to be the face of innocence. I’d say no more than 3 weeks, Boss.”

“Three weeks it is then. Will that work for you, Dr. Prentiss?”

Jane gave a quick nod and told them, “Even if Amherst plans to start selling the specialty worms in that time, it’s likely that the highest bidder will be from equally suspicious companies, and I can’t say I’ll feel particularly bad when they realize they’ve wasted their money after it goes open. Besides, what’s three more weeks after a decade of dedicated genetic tweaking?”

After exchanging a few more pleasantries and contact information, Jane Prentiss made her leave, and Jon sent out his crew to gather intel and reconvene back at the bookstore/café in 24 hours. Everyone but Melanie went off to do as told. She favored hanging around, leaning on the check out counter and cleaning her nails with a pocketknife. Moving chairs back to their original layout, Jon rolled his eyes and commented, “You know, you don’t actually have to be a walking ‘tough guy’ stereotype.”

Melanie’s eyes flicked up from her nails to watch Jon struggle to move a love-seat, before begrudgingly deciding to lend him a hand. “This coming from the textbook example of a stuffy academic. I mean really Jon, nobody needs that much argyle.”

Jon pulls as Melanie shoves, and the extra pair of hands made the task easy enough that he can actually talk _and_ move. “I’ve been told it puts people at ease. I can hardly show up to client meetings with the torn black jeans and blood red eyeshadow of my youth.”

“I’m literally sporting torn black jeans as we speak, I’m pretty sure it’d be acceptable to dress in a way less targeted to 80 year olds. Also _what?”_

Steadfastly ignoring the tacked-on question, Jon countered, “Yes, but again, you’re the aforementioned tough guy stereotype. Also, is there a reason you’re here? Because if it’s just to move furniture and criticize fashion choices, I’m almost certain your time could be better spent on research.”

For a moment, Melanie considered shoving the love-seat _onto_ Jon, but then she remembered the vow she had taken that she would only use her words on him rather than any physical violence. Shame. She considers Jon a good friend, but it’d be useful to occasionally put him in a headlock. Maybe she could talk Tim into doing it for her.

“Okay, first of all, _you_ started the fashion talk, and secondly, 90% of my job here is hitting people. Don’t really need a lot of advanced prep for that task.”

A furrow formed between Jon’s brows as they settled the love-seat back where it belonged. “That’s a rather reductive view of your role. I rather suspect you’ll have to brush up on your knowledge of the maintenance and repair of track accelerators. Though I’ll concede that we’ll have a much better idea of what _exactly_ you’ll need to study after tomorrows meeting. Feel free to….do whatever it is you do in your downtime.”

“Wow, you know me so well. Also, ugh, I’m doing character work on this one? Can’t Martin be stuck on fake repairman duty for once?”

“Hardly. His hands are too soft.”

When Melanie’s eyebrows shot up and a mocking grin began to creep on her lips, Jon realized what he had said. “That is, I-I mean, no, nothing like that, just. The only callus he has is on his left ring finger from various writing utensils, and there’s no cuts or scars, and his cuticles are very well-maintained. While his, um, build could convincingly be the result of manual labor, his hands are a give-away for a white collar background.”

“Uh-huh. You certainly pay a lot of attention to his hands. And his _build._ ”

Suddenly _very_ invested in organizing the pencil cup on the table in front of him, Jon ducked his head away from Melanie and threw up a hand. “I pay a lot of attention to _everyone’s_ hands! I’m an information gatherer, I gather information!”

“Accidentally” bumping into the table with her leg and knocking over the pencil cup, Melanie rebuffed, “I’m _just_ saying, it’s pretty rich of you to be all ‘these people are overly familiar with one another’, which, by the way, is called ‘being friends’ to the rest of us, when you’re halfway in love with Martin.”

Face and voice equally, forcibly flat, Jon replied, “I am not in love with Blackwood.”

Cat that got the cream grin now fully solidified, Melanie said, “Sure! And I’m sure you refusing to call him anything other than Blackwood is _completely_ unrelated to the fact that you called Georgie ‘Miss Barker’ for the first three months of your massive fuckin crush on her. Jonathan Sims would _never_ use aggressive formality in a piss poor attempt to combat developing _feelings.”_

"It _is_ unrelated. ‘Miss Barker’ was because I was panicking and idiotic 21 year old, ‘Blackwood’ is because that’s the only part of his name that has been legally verified, while Martin could be another one of his several aliases, as I’ve explained several times.”

“Riiiiiiight.”

“Also, I hope you’re well aware at this point of how much I hate you spending time with my ex-wife.”

He didn’t hate it. Actually, he was rather grateful that they had each other, even if Georgie did decide it would be a lark to divulge embarrassing information about his past.

“I am! You don’t hate it at all.”

Dammit.

Melanie continued, “Also, hey, one man’s ex is another woman’s future bride, ya gotta respect that.”

Oh dear. It seems Melanie had divulged just enough information for him to get swift and just retribution. “Ah, of course. So I’m assuming you’ve finally told Georgie how you feel about her. Tell me, should I _text_ her my congratulations, or do you think I should commit to a phone call? Unless, I should be giving _you_ my condolences.”

Melanie’s cheeks colored, but whether it was with fury or embarrassment was unknown. “I! You!...Shut the fuck up!”

“I mean, since we’re apparently discussing people being _obviously_ in love-”

“I didn’t realize ‘shut the fuck up!’ was unclear. And here I was, going out of my way to stick around and invite you to a movie night.”

The teasing instantly dropped in favor of genuine curiosity. “Oh? Is it an actual movie or some atrocity that only the two of us could possibly enjoy viewing?”

Melanie crossed her arms and shrugged, fighting against a smile. “Dunno. I mean, it’s this horrendously schlocky 70’s flick with a pun in the title, but maybe Tim or Sasha would be into it.”

“Hmm. _How_ horrendously schlocky?”

“There’s a frankly outrageous amount of over the top violence _and_ it’s nunsplotation.”

With an exaggeratedly put upon sigh, Jon conceded, “No, that doesn’t seem like something either Tim and Sasha should be subjected to. I suppose I shall have to accept your invitation for their sakes, though I can’t promise I’ll devote my full attention to it.”

Even the faux anger completely drained from her voice, Melanie replied, “When do you ever? And

I don’t recall _actually_ inviting you, but I’m itching to see some bright orange blood with another fine art connoisseur, and you’re the closest approximation I have right now.”

A half an hour and a full bowl of popcorn later finds them playing _The Holey Spirit_ a bit too loudly in Jon’s apartment above the café, Melanie enraptured by god-awful special effects and Jon perusing through articles on Amherst Pharmaceuticals. Growing angrier by the minute, the movie went from being a somewhat welcome distraction to a necessary one, as it was one of the few things that kept Jon from being _completely_ consumed with rage. Tomorrow, he would inform the others that their goal on this case had fucking _changed._


End file.
